Nathan Horton, Anton Khudobin spark Bruins

Wednesday

Apr 3, 2013 at 6:00 AM

By Bud Barth TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

It had been more than two weeks since the Bruins were able to put consecutive wins together. Now that they’ve cleared that hurdle, and they’re preparing to welcome Jaromir Jagr into the fold, they’re hoping for even bigger and better things.

Nathan Horton, given up for dead at one point this season, scored his fourth goal in as many games and his 12th of the season with 9:39 to play Tuesday night, and goalie Anton Khudobin made 45 saves in his second straight start to lift the Bruins to a 3-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators at TD Garden.

It’s Boston’s first two-game winning streak since March 14-16.

The Bruins climbed to within one point of first-place Montreal, which was idle, in the Northeast Division. They also padded their edge to six points over third-place Ottawa.

But it could have been a costly win for the Bruins. Center Patrice Bergeron left in the second period after taking an elbow to the head and didn’t return. There was no update on his condition after the game.

Rookie defenseman Dougie Hamilton also went off the ice and into the locker room midway through the third period after landing a huge check on Erik Condra that broke up an Ottawa rush. But he returned to the ice, and coach Claude Julien pronounced him OK after the game.

The teams combined for an incredible 97 shots, 50 by the Bruins — the most they’ve had since March 2010. Tyler Seguin had 12 of those shots, the most by a Bruin since Bill Guerin took 12 against Minnesota in November 2001.

“It was good to see our team offensively create some chances because that’s an area where we’ve struggled,” Julien said, “but somehow we’ve got to combine both (offense and defense) together.

“I thought we were very soft defensively. We didn’t play with heavy sticks, got stripped off the puck many times, (weren’t) strong on the walls.”

Horton got his first game-winner of the season when he pounced on the rebound of a Milan Lucic shot from the point and shot it past goalie Robin Lehner to snap a 2-2 tie.

The David Krejci-Lucic-Horton line has combined for seven goals and 15 points in the last five games.

“I think the main thing for the three of us is that we’ve kind of got our confidence back,” Lucic said. “It’s more of a positive frame of mind. When things weren’t going so well, we were kind of getting down on ourselves and down on each other, there was a lot of negativity between the three of us.

“We know what we’re capable of when we’re at our best. We want to contribute, we want to be a big part of this team, and it’s slowly getting to where our game needs to be and where we want it to be.”

“We also know,” added Krejci, who had a goal and an assist, “that we can play a little better.”

There was one brief scoring flurry in the first period that lasted 1:41 and ended with the Bruins on top, 2-1. It was the first time in eight games that Boston scored in the opening period.

Ottawa drew first blood, however. Andrew Ference tried to steer the puck out of the Bruins’ zone, but had his pocket picked in the slot by Colin Greening, who skated in and flipped a backhander past Khudobin at 2:48. Boston is now 9-6-3 when the opposition scores first.

But the Bruins answered right away — not once, but twice in 61 seconds. Forty seconds after the Senators struck, Zdeno Chara sent a lazy flip from just inside the blue line toward the net, and Krejci redirected it in front to make it 1-1 at 3:28.

Krejci also assisted on Horton’s goal.

It took just another 61 seconds for the B’s to go ahead on a pretty passing play from Seguin on the right side to Brad Marchand on the left and back to Seguin for the quick shot from just outside the right post at 4:29. It was Seguin’s 12th goal of the season and Marchand’s 15th assist.

It could have been 3-1 later in the period when Chara’s blast from the left point went in, but the goal at 12:11 was quickly disallowed after a review because Bergeron was in the crease.

There were 40 shots in the first period, 19 of them by Ottawa, which was the most allowed in one period by Boston this season. The Bruins’ 21 shots were their most in a period since last season.

After a scoreless middle period, the Senators tied it at 1:55 of the third period when defenseman Andre Benoit’s missile — which initially appeared to go off the crossbar as play continued — actually ricocheted in and out of the net, officials ruled less than a minute later during a stoppage in play.

After taking the lead, the Bruins dodged a bullet when Sergei Gonchar’s blast from the point was deflected right in front of Khudobin, trickled through the goalie’s pads and wobbled just wide of the right post with 3:37 left.